PIMENTEL v.

OCHOA
PETITION: For the Court’s consideration in this Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition is the
constitutionality of certain provisions of Republic Act No. 10147 or the General Appropriations Act
(GAA) of 20111 which provides a P21 Billion budget allocation for the Conditional Cash Transfer
Program (CCTP) headed by the Department of Social Welfare & Development (DSWD). Petitioners
seek to enjoin respondents Executive Secretary Paquito N. Ochoa and DSWD Secretary Corazon
Juliano-Soliman from implementing the said program on the ground that it amounts to a
"recentralization" of government functions that have already been devolved from the national
government to the local government units.
PETITIONER: AQUILINO Q. PIMENTEL, JR
RESPONDENT: EXECUTIVE SECRETARY PAQUITO N. OCHOA

FACTS:
In 2007, the DSWD embarked on a poverty reduction strategy with the poorest of the poor as target
beneficiaries. Dubbed "Ahon Pamilyang Pilipino," it was pre-pilot tested in the municipalities of
Sibagat and Esperanza in Agusan del Sur; the municipalities of Lopez Jaena and Bonifacio in
Misamis Occidental, the Caraga Region; and the cities of Pasay and Caloocan upon the release of the
amount of P50 Million Pesos under a Special Allotment Release Order (SARO) issued by the
Department of Budget and Management.
On July 16, 2008, the DSWD issued Administrative Order No. 16, series of 2008 (A.O. No. 16, s.
2008), setting the implementing guidelines for the project renamed "Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino
Program" (4Ps), upon the following stated objectives, to wit:
1. To improve preventive health care of pregnant women and young children
2. To increase enrollment/attendance of children at elementary level
3. To reduce incidence of child labor
4. To raise consumption of poor households on nutrient dense foods
5. To encourage parents to invest in their children's (and their own) future
6. To encourage parent's participation in the growth and development of young children, as well as
involvement in the community
This government intervention scheme, also conveniently referred to as CCTP, "provides cash grant to
extreme poor households to allow the members of the families to meet certain human development
goals.”

A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) executed by the DSWD with each participating LGU outlines
in detail the obligation of both parties during the intended five-year implementation of the CCTP.
Congress, for its part, sought to ensure the success of the CCTP by providing it with funding under
the GAA of 2008 in the amount of Two Hundred Ninety-Eight Million Five Hundred Fifty Thousand
Pesos (P298,550,000.00). This budget allocation increased tremendously to P5 Billion Pesos in 2009,
with the amount doubling to P10 Billion Pesos in 2010. But the biggest allotment given to the CCTP
was in the GAA of 2011 at Twenty One Billion One Hundred Ninety-Four Million One Hundred
Seventeen Thousand Pesos (P21,194,117,000.00). 1
Petitioner Aquilino Pimentel, Jr., a former Senator, joined by Sergio Tadeo, incumbent President of
the Association of Barangay Captains of Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, and Nelson Alcantara,
incumbent Barangay Captain of Barangay Sta. Monica, Quezon City, challenges before the Court the
disbursement of public funds and the implementation of the CCTP which are alleged to have
encroached into the local autonomy of the LGUs.

ISSUE: WON THE P21 BILLION CCTP BUDGET ALLOCATION UNDER THE DSWD IN
THE GAA FY 2011 VIOLATES ART. II, SEC. 25 & ART. X, SEC. 3 OF THE 1987
CONSTITUTION IN RELATION TO SEC. 17 OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT CODE OF
1991 BY PROVIDING FOR THE RECENTRALIZATION OF THE NATIONAL
GOVERNMENT IN THE DELIVERY OF BASIC SERVICES ALREADY DEVOLVED TO
THE LGUS.
HELD:

Under the Philippine concept of local autonomy, the national government has not completely
relinquished all its powers over local governments, including autonomous regions. Only
administrative powers over local affairs are delegated to political subdivisions. The purpose of the
delegation is to make governance more directly responsive and effective at the local levels. In turn,
economic, political and social development at the smaller political units are expected to propel social
and economic growth and development. But to enable the country to develop as a whole, the
programs and policies effected locally must be integrated and coordinated towards a common national
goal. Thus, policy-setting for the entire country still lies in the President and Congress.
Certainly, to yield unreserved power of governance to the local government unit as to preclude any
and all involvement by the national government in programs implemented in the local level would be
to shift the tide of monopolistic power to the other extreme, which would amount to a decentralization
of power explicated in Limbona v. Mangelin21 as beyond our constitutional concept of autonomy,
thus:
Now, autonomy is either decentralization of administration or decentralization of
power.1âwphi1 There is decentralization of administration when the central government delegates
administrative powers to political subdivisions in order to broaden the base of government power and
in the process to make local governments ‘more responsive and accountable’ and ‘ensure their fullest
development as self-reliant communities and make them more effective partners in the pursuit of
national development and social progress.’ At the same time, it relieves the central government of the
burden of managing local affairs and enables it to concentrate on national concerns. The President
exercises ‘general supervision’ over them, but only to ‘ensure that local affairs are administered
according to law.’ He has no control over their acts in the sense that he can substitute their judgments
with his own.
Decentralization of power, on the other hand, involves an abdication of political power in the [sic]
favor of local governments [sic] units declared to be autonomous. In that case, the autonomous
government is free to chart its own destiny and shape its future with minimum intervention from
central authorities. According to a constitutional author, decentralization of power amounts to ‘self-
immolation,’ since in that event, the autonomous government becomes accountable not to the central
authorities but to its constituency.22
Indeed, a complete relinquishment of central government powers on the matter of providing basic
facilities and services cannot be implied as the Local Government Code itself weighs against it. The
national government is, thus, not precluded from taking a direct hand in the formulation and
implementation of national development programs especially where it is implemented locally in
coordination with the LGUs concerned.
Every law has in its favor the presumption of constitutionality, and to justify its nullification, there
must be a clear and unequivocal breach of the Constitution, not a doubtful and argumentative
one.23 Petitioners have failed to discharge the burden of proving the invalidity of the provisions under
the GAA of 2011. The allocation of a P21 billion budget for an intervention program formulated by
the national government itself but implemented in partnership with the local government units to
achieve the common national goal development and social progress can by no means be an
encroachment upon the autonomy of local governments.

PETITION DISMISSED